


In the Woods Somewhere

by lillyfmack



Category: I’ll Give You The Sun, igyts
Genre: #brianandnoah #brianconnelly #noahsweetwine #illgiveyouthesun #igyts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:34:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22334995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillyfmack/pseuds/lillyfmack
Summary: “Yeah. Yeah, let’s walk.”Brian meets Noah in the woods, 2 years after Noah ruined everything. And there isn’t a thing he wouldn’t do to apologize.
Relationships: Brian Connelly/Noah Sweetwine
Comments: 4
Kudos: 74





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve literally,, never written fanfiction before and i wrote this first chapter in a day with very very little editing. essentially i just wanted more igyts fanfiction out there that’s similar to the way jandy nelson writes but not an exact copy

**PART 1**

It takes all the courage of all the lions in all the prides in all the world for me to walk back to the spot in the woods. That spot where it all went down two winters ago, right before I ruined Brian’s life, and my own. Brian. If it’s this hard for me to walk here I can’t imagine what it feels like for him. He’s probably reliving that moment, his face falling off like it did back then, and only right after he put it back together again. 

Jude showed me the articles, when we got back from Guillermo’s after I showed her my mural. I read them so many times I have them all memorized. 

That’s not the only thing she showed me. Well, told me. She said to check my post and I knew instantly what she meant, even though my heart didn’t let me believe it. I was a total dick to him, like a total humongous whale dick. If I haven’t forgiven myself how could he have? But he did and I know he did because he said so, he said he’d be there, today he said he’d be there. 

Here. I’m here and he will be too soon, at least that’s what his reply said. I’ll be there. My heart won’t stop jumping around like a big frog in my chest but each time I think about Brian it stops for a moment. 

Because he won’t want to talk to me, he probably only said yes because he wants to scream at me for ruining his life and I can’t blame him. I ruined his life so bad and for no reason. Like I ruined it so bad and he hates me, because who wouldn’t. I certainly would. I do. And now he’s living the life that I wanted to live but without me because I guess all he needed to do was get away from

me and he could be happy again. He could be himself. 

The thought twists me up inside because it’s true, it has to be. Because otherwise why would he have left me like that, why would he have told me he couldn’t be with me. Because he could, he just didn’t want to, because it was me not him who ruined it. Who ruined his life and now he’s in college and everyone loves him and he’s happy now that he isn’t with me. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have asked him to come, I shouldn’t have made him do this because he so clearly doesn’t want to, he’s happy now and he’s fine and he’s happy without me. I get up to go but something stops me in my tracks. Jasmine.

The scent wraps around my head like a cloud and threatens to strangle me. My heart flips and flips and flips and flips and I can’t see but I can’t close my eyes because when I do, I just see the two of us on his roof, melting back into one another like I wanted to so badly. My throat closes in an effort not to cry. 

“Hey.” The source of the jasmine. Brian.

I guess the throat thing didn’t work because tears are pouring out of my eyes and I haven’t even turned to look at him. I can’t look at him because if I try to then he’ll see all the secrets I’ve tried so hard to keep these past two years. He’ll see them in my eyes so I can’t look at him. 

“Hi.” My voice has never been quieter, not even back before Brian, before when I only talked to the trees, and Jude. Not even after those 7 minutes in the closet with Heather, when my skin pooled at my feet because it couldn’t bear to be anywhere near me. 

I remember his face, back then, the way he looked at me after we left the closet, like I’d stabbed him through the heart with his own knife. I can’t bear to see him like that, even if it was just in my head. I turn to look at him, finally.

And woah. He’s wearing a t-shirt and god I wish he wasn’t, because his arms look like they’re straight off of David, and it makes me wonder what they would feel like, wonder so hard my hand reaches out to touch them before I yank it back. I can't even look at his face. This was a bad idea.

“Hi”, I say again. Except, fuck I already said hi, and now he’s gonna think I’m crazier than he already thinks I am. Except I hear him laugh, at least I think it’s a laugh, but either way it burns my face bright red. I look down.

“Jasmine. How’d you remember?” I’m still looking at the ground. I can't find the source of the smell, and trying forces me to look at him, except each time I do I have to look away or I’ll collapse. 

“I remember. Trust me.” Oh god, if this continues my face will melt off my skull by the time he finishes his sentence. “I thought, maybe we should tell each other our secrets. For old times sake”. 

Old times sake. I look up at him for the first time, and he’s holding a bottle in his hand, where I’m assuming the smell is coming from. I make myself look him in the face. He’s straight out of a movie I swear. He runs his tongue over the smallest ghost of his half-smile on his lips. Fuck this is so much harder than I thought it would be. I don’t count any new freckles, but his face is tanned and strong, like a baseball players. The sharp curve of his jaw reminds me of the guys at the party and I instantly shiver. I can't do this. 

I realize I’m staring but it’s too late, he’s caught me. But his lips curve softly, and I can see the smile in his eyes. His eyes are the one thing about him that haven’t changed, and I quickly make the biggest prayer to Clark Gable for that. It’s all I can do not to stare at them, get lost in them and float around like a planet in space. 

But that's not what I came here for. Or, what I asked him here for. 

“Look, Brian,” I start. His head whips towards me at the sound of his name and it makes me jump. I continue, “I fucked up. Like I fucked up so supremely horribly and I absolutely should never have done that to you. The second I said it, I wanted to take it back but I couldn’t because it was already out there and I shouldn’t have said it in the first place.” I don't know how to continue, but I go on anyway, “I totally understand if you hate me and if you never want to talk to me because who wouldn’t I mean what I did was horrible I- ”

“You outed me.” The harshness of his tone sting, but I guess it should. I deserve it. The laughter is gone from his face and all he has now is boarded up. I can't see past the “Do Not Enter” sign. 

“I know and I’m so fucking sorry I had absolutely no right to do that”, tears lesve my eyes but I ignore them, “I ruined your life and just totally fucked up I’m so so fucking sorry.” He won’t look at me now.

“You really did fuck up”. It’s a whisper but it bores into me.

“I know and I can’t tell you how sorry - ”

“Noah”. That stops me in my tracks. It’s the first time he’s said my name in 2 years. “You did fuck up. Bad. And for a while I was upset, and I even hated you for it.” I knew this was coming. But I didn’t know it would feel like an excavation. “But you didn’t ruin my life.” 

Wait, what? He looks at me now, and I can see that there are tears on his face as well as my own. I want to wish them away and bring back his smile. “At first I thought you did, but you didn’t. Noah,” my heart skips a beat, “if you hadn’t told Courtney that day I would never have come out. I’d never have told my whole team and I would have left Forrester and wouldn’t be at Stanford now. I wouldn’t be here now.” He looks down. Wait does he mean- “You saved my life, Noah.” It’s a whisper, like he almost doesn’t say it, because he knows what it means, and so do I. 

I search his face for more details, anything, but come up empty. And we’re right back to that day on the roof, No Big Deal. But he knows this is a big deal. Still, I won’t press it. I owe him that much. 

“Can we walk?” he asks, but his voice falters like a butterfly’s wings, and he offers a tearful smile. 

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s walk.”


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens during the walk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m back folks!! shoutout to my lovely girlfriend who i bullied into reading this book and is the inspiration for the majority of this chapter! she’s reading this now so i can’t be too sappy or i’ll lose my punk rock image

It isn’t hard to talk to him. Not like I thought it would be. He’s just so - him. Still, even after everything that happened. And I’m not still me, and he knows that, but I don’t think he really cares. It’s more than I could ever have hoped for. 

I guess that’s why I always loved him. From the minute he caught me spying on those two man-horses the day he moved in. I realize now I never told him that story, as mundane as it was.

“You remember the day you moved in to the house next door?” He stops walking, so I do, too.

“Yeah.”

“You caught me spying on the guys moving your piano into the house. That was before I really, like, knew. Or understood, I guess.” I try to laugh but it comes off weird. Angry. “I was so scared you were gonna do something. Like beat me up or tell everyone and then - “

“I would never do that.” Bullseye: ouch. There’s a pause.

“I didn’t know you then. But I knew I liked you.” I can’t tell if it’s too much. If I’ll scare him away.

“What, because I didn’t beat you up for liking dudes?” 

“No! I mean, it helped, but that wasn’t it. I liked you because I couldn’t tell what kind of animal you were. Still can’t.”

He finally laughs, a real laugh, and I wish he’d never stop laughing. Like we were 14 again, looking for meteorites and faking British accents. Oscar accents! 

“ For real?” Theres something about the way he says it that makes me burst into flames. Jude used to say that’s what happened to people in Heaven when they fell in love. 

“For real. I couldn’t decide. You’re just -“

“Just what?” He exhales it, like he was holding his breath and just let it out. The way he’s looking at me makes my stomach have it’s own personal dance party. What the hell. I’ll jump.

“You’re just so fucking special, Brian. That’s what.” This isn’t what he expects me to say, given his expression, but he hasn’t run away. Yet. I continue. “I never actually had conversations, or hung out, or even enjoyed being around anyone outside my family before you. You just made it so easy for me to be my weird ass self.” I hear him laugh at this, but don’t see him because I’ve closed my eyes again, to stop the tears from spilling over and drowning us both. “You were the best thing that ever happened to me.” I nearly can’t say this last part, but I have to. For him. “You still are.”

He sucks in a breath and I see his fingers twitch. Is he going to punch me? Maybe. He has the strength for it surely, to knock me right out so I don’t remember any of this. Maybe I want him to punch me, so I can forget any of this happened and go on living my miserable life being fake-Noah. At least fake-Noah doesn’t get his heartbroken anymore.

But he doesn’t punch me. Actually, he doesn’t do anything, which is almost worse. But then he says something, so quiet I almost can’t hear it. 

“Noah.” Now I’m the one holding my breath. I can tell he’s leaning in to kiss me. He makes the same face he made when we were 14 and in these same woods, but it feels like another lifetime. His eyes are closed now and he’s so close I can count his eyelashes. God, I missed him. 

When he kisses me, finally kisses me, it’s exactly the same. But it’s also the complete opposite. I’ve hurt him so intensely and he’s become this, this star! and I’ve become who I said I would never become. But none of that matters when he’s kissing me and when I’m kissing him and he’s kissing me and I’m kissing him. 

All the girls I’d kissed were like Heather: they were rose petals so close to breaking. But he was an avalanche, a hurricane. He was the one doing the breaking. 

I miss his lips on mine even before they’re gone, before he pulls back and leaves me in a swirling haze. The world is black and white at first, missing the color it was rich with moments before, when his hands were in my hair. But he speaks, and the color comes rushing back like a cup spilled over the sky. 

“You’re a meerkat”, he says, fully not what I was expecting to hear. “Or maybe a mouse, but a very opinionated mouse.” I look up at him now, and his eyes are dancing. I want to kiss him again, but I don’t. Not yet.

“I can be a mouse.” I laugh, and he does too, so the whole world laughs along. “I can be a mouse.” I can only whisper now, because he’s looking at me like I’ve wanted him too look at me for years, and I’m looking at him. Just like that I’m kissing him again and holding him again and all the colors are more intense again.

Two years of silence, of grieving, of pretending, of shame. All thrown out of the window for him. 

I don’t ever want to stop kissing him, but I have to. I have to say something and he has to hear it. I don’t think my brain gets the memo though, because it can’t put two words together for 30 seconds.

Neither can he, so we just stay with our foreheads together and our eyes shut, like we’re praying. To what god, I don’t know. I have to say something.

“Time machines don’t exist.” 

“What?” He holds my head in his hands now, and it’s like he was made for this.

“Time machines don’t exist. I keep wishing I could go back and change everything, not say what I said and maybe everything would be better. Be the way I always wanted it to be, with you. But time machines don’t exist and I can’t change anything that happened. I’m sorry.”

Brian doesn’t say anything at first, and I have a mild panic attack, frantically trying to come up with something to say to make him hate me less. It’s a familiar panic, one I thought I’d left behind that summer I met Brian. 

“I don’t want to go back, Noah.” I’ll never get used to the way he says my name. “I like the way things are, especially from where I’m standing.” He hasn’t let go of my face and I don’t want him to. “I’m happy right here, right now. How about you?”

All I can do is smile at him.


End file.
